Category: The American Spectator
The Supreme Court takes up New Jersey’s baseless assault on pro-life support for moms
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin’s office was recently forced to make a stunning admission before the U.S. Supreme Court. During oral arguments, Platkin’s team conceded that although the state issued a sweeping subpoena against a pregnancy center — First Choice Women’s Resource Centers — the office had no complaints against the organization.
That admission stripped away any pretense that the attorney general was protecting consumers. It revealed the real motive: a fishing expedition into constitutionally protected internal records and private donor information for no reason other than First Choice’s commitment to life-affirming support for women. Now the court must decide whether New Jersey’s top law enforcement officer can bully pro-life charities out of helping women and families.
When First Choice made its case before the Supreme Court, it stood up for every American who believes mothers deserve compassion without harassment from the state.
What’s at stake is the work of pregnancy centers and charities nationwide that help women sustain their decision for life. These organizations provide the material and emotional resources mothers need to meet their own needs and the needs of their children.
Choosing life for an unborn child is never a one-time decision. It’s a daily commitment made amid financial, professional, emotional, or health-related pressures — and often in the face of serious challenges in securing food, clothing, housing, and other essentials. Women deserve support in every one of those areas so they can pursue their ambitions with their children. Pro-life Americans stand ready to offer that support. Platkin prefers abortion over help for moms.
Research shows that 60% of women who have had abortions would have preferred to choose life if they had more financial security or emotional support. Pregnancy centers and life-affirming organizations across the country confront this reality every day. Last year alone, they provided $452 million in support services, medical care, and material goods — all free of charge.
And the need keeps growing. Over the past two years, pregnancy centers increased their material assistance by 48% to ensure that women have what they need to thrive in pregnancy and early parenting. In 2024 alone, they served 1 million new clients.
When families face challenges beyond diapers and baby supplies, pregnancy centers rise to meet them. At Real Options Pregnancy Center in Texas, staff provided full Thanksgiving meals to local families. In Chicago, a center hosts an annual Christmas celebration so moms can put gifts under the tree. Across the country, community partners working with Her PLAN offer free car maintenance and help women escape trafficking and addiction, secure housing, and receive job training.
Every woman’s story is unique. Pregnancy centers recognize that dignity, which is why they collaborate with trusted community resources to provide comprehensive support tailored to each individual who walks through their doors.
This community network forms the pro-life safety net that Her PLAN strengthens through grassroots engagement and an online directory of vetted service providers across seven categories of care. For women with nowhere else to turn, this wraparound support provides stability, hope, and practical help.
RELATED: Leftist war on pro-life pregnancy centers faces Supreme Court reckoning
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
Women who receive services from pregnancy centers report a 98% satisfaction rate. The real measure of success, however, is the women who later return to help others.
Courtney, once overwhelmed by two unexpected pregnancies, now works at the very center that supported her.
Jean Marie, who escaped human trafficking with the help of a New Hampshire pregnancy center, now runs a center in Vermont, using her experience to counsel vulnerable women.
In Northern Virginia, a maternity home helped Shawnte when she lost her job and housing. Today she works as a peer-recovery coach and credits the maternity home with giving her the strength not to abort “a child I knew I wanted, just because things got hard.”
These women — and countless others — were empowered by the pro-life safety net and now devote themselves to strengthening it for the next mother in crisis.
This is work that protects lives, stabilizes families, and strengthens communities. It deserves support, not intimidation from pro-abortion politicians. When First Choice made its case before the Supreme Court, it stood up for every American who believes mothers deserve compassion without harassment from the state.
Helping women is not controversial. It is love in action.
For once, Medicare is trying something that actually saves money
Medicare is the second-largest program in the federal budget, topping $1 trillion last year. In 2023, it accounted for 14% of federal spending — a share projected to reach 18% by 2032. After years of ballooning costs, something is finally being done to slow the growth. A new Medicare pilot program, the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction model, borrows a successful private-sector tool: prior authorization. And that’s good news.
Medicare Part B premiums now sit at $185 per month — up 28% from five years ago and a staggering 76% since 2015. Last year, 12% of the 61 million Americans enrolled in Part B spent more than a tenth of their annual income on premiums. That burden is unsustainable.
In a system as expensive and fragmented as ours, no one can afford to keep writing blank checks for low-value care.
WISeR, set to launch in Ohio, Texas, Washington, New Jersey, Arizona, and Oklahoma, will require prior approval for a short list of “low-value” services — procedures that research shows are frequently overused, costly, and sometimes harmful.
To some, the idea of Medicare reviewing certain treatments before covering them may sound like red tape. But when done correctly, prior authorization is not a barrier. It is a guardrail — one that protects patients, improves quality, and helps ensure that both tax dollars and premiums are spent appropriately.
The goal of WISeR is simple: Cut unnecessary treatments and shift resources toward more effective, evidence-based care. Critics warn about the possibility of delays or extra paperwork, and those concerns are worth monitoring. But they don’t negate prior authorization’s potential to make U.S. health care safer, more efficient, and more financially stable.
Prior authorization directly targets some of the most persistent problems in health care. Medicare spends billions each year on low-value services. A 2023 study identified just 47 such services that together cost Medicare more than $4 billion annually. Those are taxpayer dollars that could be put to better use.
The private insurance market shows the same pattern: unnecessary imaging, avoidable specialist referrals, and brand-name drugs chosen over generics all contribute to rising premiums. Prior authorization, when used properly, reins in this waste by ensuring coverage lines up with medical necessity and evidence-based best practices. Research from the University of Chicago shows that Medicare’s prior authorization rules for prescription drugs generate net savings even after administrative costs.
Consider one striking example. Medicare Part B covers wound-care products known as skin substitutes. But an Office of Inspector General report found that expenditures on these products skyrocketed over the past two years to more than $10 billion annually. Meanwhile, Medicare Advantage plans — which rely heavily on prior authorization — spent only a fraction of that amount for the same treatments.
RELATED: When a ‘too big to fail’ America meets a government too broke to bail it out
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More importantly, prior authorization helps promote evidence-based medicine. It curbs outdated clinical habits and reduces financial incentives to overtreat. Health plans consistently say that prior authorization aligns care with gold-standard clinical guidelines, particularly in areas prone to misuse.
Of course, the system must be designed responsibly. A well-functioning PA process should be transparent, fast, and grounded in strong clinical evidence. Decisions should be made in close coordination with the patient’s treating provider. The appeals process must be straightforward. And both public and private payers should be held accountable for improper denials or harmful delays.
When structured this way, prior authorization is far more efficient than the current “pay-and-chase” model, where Medicare pays first and tries to recover improper payments later.
Prior authorization already works in the private sector. It can work in Medicare.
Public and private payers have an obligation to steward the dollars they spend — whether those dollars come from taxpayers or premium-payers. In a system as expensive and fragmented as ours, no one can afford to keep writing blank checks for low-value care. When implemented wisely, prior authorization keeps coverage aligned with medical necessity, elevates the value of care, and helps deliver better outcomes at a sustainable cost.
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